Kokoloko85
Member
They were a great teamDon't care ever since Evolution was closed.
They were a great teamDon't care ever since Evolution was closed.
They were a great team
closing evolution was one of the worst mistakes Sony made last gen, only second to not giving Ready at Dawn another chance
studio died because driveclub was boring. They should have never given up on motorstorm
closing evolution was one of the worst mistakes Sony made last gen, only second to not giving Ready at Dawn another chance
studio died because driveclub was boring. They should have never given up on motorstorm
This is with mustaches like these that you end up with painting like this:
Ready at Dawn made an horrible game that looked great, none of their God of War game was very good either... I don't think they deserved another chance.closing evolution was one of the worst mistakes Sony made last gen, only second to not giving Ready at Dawn another chance
I think there was a little more to it than that. I remember hearing all kinds of things about the development troubles within Evolution at the time Driveclub was being made. Keep in mind that game was delayed for an entire year and still released with issues that should have been resolved in that delay time. They lost a director of the game who claimed personal reasons. The people that were laid off from Evolution and didn't find themselves back with SIE somewhere else joined Codemasters as their own team and made Onrush. Which did so poorly that even after just one game some of the old Evolution team, including the director who finished Driveclub, were let go. The rest were relegated to being support staff.closing evolution was one of the worst mistakes Sony made last gen, only second to not giving Ready at Dawn another chance
studio died because driveclub was boring. They should have never given up on motorstorm
Sorry to bother you with this question?
How long doe it take for a mod to ban you? I requested a self ban, and I want to take a break.
I think there was a little more to it than that. I remember hearing all kinds of things about the development troubles within Evolution at the time Driveclub was being made. Keep in mind that game was delayed for an entire year and still released with issues that should have been resolved in that delay time. They lost a director of the game who claimed personal reasons. The people that were laid off from Evolution and didn't find themselves back with SIE somewhere else joined Codemasters as their own team and made Onrush. Which did so poorly that even after just one game some of the old Evolution team, including the director who finished Driveclub, were let go. The rest were relegated to being support staff.
So it seems to me that the leadership within PlayStation didn't have confidence in the Evolution team at a time when racing games were dying down in popularity. This seems to have been proven a correct assessment based on their performance at Codemasters. Multiple studios that made racing games felt redundant to Sony during the PS4 era and Evolution couldn't convince them they were worth it. The MotorStorm games, if I recall correctly, were critically well received but each entry sold significantly fewer copies than the one before. To the point where they were selling sub-1 million copies compared to the 3 million+ of the original. At the end of the day, they weren't worth the cost to PlayStation's leaders.
As far as Ready at Dawn, I'm guessing The Order was highly embarrassing to Sony. They marketed the game quite well. Had all the confidence in the world in the developers. Even sat the head of the studio at panels during PSX with other prominent Sony developers. Then the game released and it was bad. Like, really disappointing after the hype. They spent so much time working on the engine and visual polish that the game ultimately suffered. It was one of the worst PlayStation games of the generation. The relationship between the two companies quickly died and they followed that game up with another stinker that did even worse. Then released a great VR title right after and, from what I understand, ended up in long term contracts with Facebook that ultimately led to acquisition. Even if Sony wanted to buy them it would likely have been quite some time before anything would come from it.
ugh I keep repeating myself, why the Evolution studios closed. Motorstorm apocalypse bombed, then driveclub with the online gameplay fiasco that took over a month to be fixed. Sony had 2 racing studios, one has an IP that is the PlayStation racing game while evolution studios games were “drifting”… meaning no identityclosing evolution was one of the worst mistakes Sony made last gen, only second to not giving Ready at Dawn another chance
studio died because driveclub was boring. They should have never given up on motorstorm
I don’t know about Driveclub but Motorstorm is my favourite racing series. I loved Apocalypse.closing evolution was one of the worst mistakes Sony made last gen, only second to not giving Ready at Dawn another chance
studio died because driveclub was boring. They should have never given up on motorstorm
this is a good summary of what happened. However, you cannot cut ties with studios because of one bad game. The order was awful. one of the worst games ever because of its lack of gameplay and big focus on cinematics, but thats an easy fix. you sit down those guys and tell them to get their shit together and release a game with more gameplay than cutscenes next time around.I think there was a little more to it than that. I remember hearing all kinds of things about the development troubles within Evolution at the time Driveclub was being made. Keep in mind that game was delayed for an entire year and still released with issues that should have been resolved in that delay time. They lost a director of the game who claimed personal reasons. The people that were laid off from Evolution and didn't find themselves back with SIE somewhere else joined Codemasters as their own team and made Onrush. Which did so poorly that even after just one game some of the old Evolution team, including the director who finished Driveclub, were let go. The rest were relegated to being support staff.
So it seems to me that the leadership within PlayStation didn't have confidence in the Evolution team at a time when racing games were dying down in popularity. This seems to have been proven a correct assessment based on their performance at Codemasters. Multiple studios that made racing games felt redundant to Sony during the PS4 era and Evolution couldn't convince them they were worth it. The MotorStorm games, if I recall correctly, were critically well received but each entry sold significantly fewer copies than the one before. To the point where they were selling sub-1 million copies compared to the 3 million+ of the original. At the end of the day, they weren't worth the cost to PlayStation's leaders.
As far as Ready at Dawn, I'm guessing The Order was highly embarrassing to Sony. They marketed the game quite well. Had all the confidence in the world in the developers. Even sat the head of the studio at panels during PSX with other prominent Sony developers. Then the game released and it was bad. Like, really disappointing after the hype. They spent so much time working on the engine and visual polish that the game ultimately suffered. It was one of the worst PlayStation games of the generation. The relationship between the two companies quickly died and they followed that game up with another stinker that did even worse. Then released a great VR title right after and, from what I understand, ended up in long term contracts with Facebook that ultimately led to acquisition. Even if Sony wanted to buy them it would likely have been quite some time before anything would come from it.
this is a good summary of what happened. However, you cannot cut ties with studios because of one bad game. The order was awful. one of the worst games ever because of its lack of gameplay and big focus on cinematics, but thats an easy fix. you sit down those guys and tell them to get their shit together and release a game with more gameplay than cutscenes next time around.
ready at dawn made two fantastic gameplay driven god of war games and introduced two really awesome weapons. they know their shit.
DC wasnt even that bad. it is by no means a 70 metacritic game. it had some online issues at launch but the game ran well, didnt crash and had no bugs other than the online stuff not working. it was pretty much all sorted out within a couple of months and within half a year had sold over 2 million copies. i really dont understand how sony can look at both games and lose confidence. especially when they were selling a record number of ps4s and ps+ subs.
Jim Ryan and Herman Hurst get a lot of blame, but Shawn Layden and Andrew House were no angels either. Sony shutdown Guerrila Cambridge around the same time. What was wrong with KZ vita? definitely a much better game than KZ Shadowfall if they believe in metacritic so much. I think sony was in a weird spot last gen. its almost like they didnt believe in their own studios anymore. Zipper and Incognito were shutdown at the end of the PS3 gen despite the insane reception of the PS4 reveal. Stig and Amy Henning were let go. SSM's game in development for 4 years was cancelled. All under Andrew House and Jack Tretton's watch.
Shawn Layden said something insane like he didnt have any first party online shooters because he didnt want to compete with his third party partners like activision and EA. That is absolutely insane. If that was the thought process behind killing Zipper, GG Cambridge, Incognito and Evolution Studios then I am happy Layden was unceremoniously let go. At least Sony is investing in online shooters again.
yep. If they hadnt acquired Insomniac last year, and MS had instead, their launch window lineup would look pretty barebones.Feels like Sony wasn't really confident doubling down on their lesser known studios. Which was a HUGE, HUGE mistake in retrospect. It has put them in a bind since their AAA studios take so damn long now to make games.
Imagine if Ready at Dawn got another chance at a new IP, but this time got their shit together, had like 6+ years (like Bend or Sucker Punch got)...they could have EASILY been the next Sony Santa Monica and would likely have a PS5 launch window title ready.
Imagine if they gave the Killzone franchise to Cambridge and they released a next-gen Killzone game while GG was free to work on Horizon 2? I think that would have sold tons, the studio was talented as hell.
But nope...one flop and they were cutting ties completely. Makes no long-term strategic sense. The worst thing to do is cut losses after one bad title when sometimes that was out of their control (Vita was a flop, and expectations were set way too high with RAD to deliver early on with PS4). They should have considered the "losses" in those studios as an "investment" into growing them into something bigger and better for the future. There's ALWAYS lessons learned here. Unless the studios flat out suck, there's no reason to cut ties and shut them down when gaming went through an explosion of growth with PS4.
Too damn conservative and now they are playing catch up. At least Hermen and Jimbo seem to be recognizing this and doing the best they can to fix it and sign tons of studios.
Maybe they’ll announce a new acquisition each day this week. Tomorrow BluePoint and the day after Blue Box/Kojima ProdPlease acquire BLUE BOX Game Studios next.
Oh for sure there are things that go on at these studios all the time that we just don't ever know about and to us on the outside it seems silly that a closure happened. There could have been paths Sony and Evolution took to avoid the issues that eventually happened but that would require foresight to know which path to take and which would lead to a bad outcome. That's not easy to do, especially with Sony being mostly hands off when it comes to what their studios do. Evolution's fate was in its own hands and it blew it, sadly.You may be right about Evolution. You can never really tell without having first hand knowledge of these situations. However, I think moving to an online-focused social game and a next-gen title was just a difficult transition in general, and maybe Sony should have given them a bit more leash..
I do think "DriveClub" was a mistake (despite ultimately being a good game after the updates). I think that early in a gen it's better to have more conservative titles. They should have made a next-gen MotorStorm title and then added on more social stuff over time. Either way I'm not hugely gutted just because racers really aren't my thing, but I loved the physics based arcadey action they were going for with motorstorm. DriveClub really didn't do much for me in comparison.
"The Order" is a case of a traditional handheld studio (like Bend) with normal AAA growing pains. They went from PSP games to a damn PS4 title. That's not an easy transition. The actual title they made has a very good core - absolutely beautiful, solid mechanics. It just was way too short, lacked too much diversity of gameplay systems and progression, and felt like Gears-lite. I think if Sony had given them a leash as long as they did with Bend to execute ambitiously on their vision, it may have had a much different result. For sure, the Metacritic was embarrassing, but underneath the talent was still there at the studio. All of their handheld God of War games were great.
I guess maybe Sony learned with Bend to be more patient. Thankfully they did not get closed down like RAD and are giving them a chance to grow now that they are "up to speed" on how to make big AAA games.
I agree with both of you that Ready at Dawn had potential that Sony should have been mindful of but I'm sure they had spent a lot of money on The Order to watch it flop hard. That likely left a very bad taste in their mouths and they weren't eager to jump back on that train. RaD's game after The Order, Deformers, was bad too and no one took notice of it. Sony clearly had knowledge of its existence since it was on PS4 among other platforms. So to them they may have started feeling like RaD may not be the same one anymore that made those great handheld games.this is a good summary of what happened. However, you cannot cut ties with studios because of one bad game. The order was awful. one of the worst games ever because of its lack of gameplay and big focus on cinematics, but thats an easy fix. you sit down those guys and tell them to get their shit together and release a game with more gameplay than cutscenes next time around.
ready at dawn made two fantastic gameplay driven god of war games and introduced two really awesome weapons. they know their shit.
DC wasnt even that bad. it is by no means a 70 metacritic game. it had some online issues at launch but the game ran well, didnt crash and had no bugs other than the online stuff not working. it was pretty much all sorted out within a couple of months and within half a year had sold over 2 million copies. i really dont understand how sony can look at both games and lose confidence. especially when they were selling a record number of ps4s and ps+ subs.
Jim Ryan and Herman Hurst get a lot of blame, but Shawn Layden and Andrew House were no angels either. Sony shutdown Guerrila Cambridge around the same time. What was wrong with KZ vita? definitely a much better game than KZ Shadowfall if they believe in metacritic so much. I think sony was in a weird spot last gen. its almost like they didnt believe in their own studios anymore. Zipper and Incognito were shutdown at the end of the PS3 gen despite the insane reception of the PS4 reveal. Stig and Amy Henning were let go. SSM's game in development for 4 years was cancelled. All under Andrew House and Jack Tretton's watch.
Shawn Layden said something insane like he didnt have any first party online shooters because he didnt want to compete with his third party partners like activision and EA. That is absolutely insane. If that was the thought process behind killing Zipper, GG Cambridge, Incognito and Evolution Studios then I am happy Layden was unceremoniously let go. At least Sony is investing in online shooters again.
Feels like Sony wasn't really confident doubling down on their lesser known studios. Which was a HUGE, HUGE mistake in retrospect. It has put them in a bind since their AAA studios take so damn long now to make games.
Imagine if Ready at Dawn got another chance at a new IP, but this time got their shit together, had like 6+ years (like Bend or Sucker Punch got)...they could have EASILY been the next Sony Santa Monica and would likely have a PS5 launch window title ready.
Imagine if they gave the Killzone franchise to Cambridge and they released a next-gen Killzone game while GG was free to work on Horizon 2? I think that would have sold tons, the studio was talented as hell.
But nope...one flop and they were cutting ties completely. Makes no long-term strategic sense. The worst thing to do is cut losses after one bad title when sometimes that was out of their control (Vita was a flop, and expectations were set way too high with RAD to deliver early on with PS4). They should have considered the "losses" in those studios as an "investment" into growing them into something bigger and better for the future. There's ALWAYS lessons learned here. Unless the studios flat out suck, there's no reason to cut ties and shut them down when gaming went through an explosion of growth with PS4.
Too damn conservative and now they are playing catch up. At least Hermen and Jimbo seem to be recognizing this and doing the best they can to fix it and sign tons of studios.
Years later, maybe.Given Sony’s current trend, PC versions are still highly likely.
Nice list.What are some of the remakes y'all want from Bluepoint? My wishlist
Resistance 3
Metal Gear Solid
Uncharted 2
Legend of Dragoon
Silent Hill
Killzone 2
Syphon Filter
Jak and Daxter
Infamous
Sly Cooper
What are some of the remakes y'all want from Bluepoint? My wishlist
While some of these seem extremely unlikely, at least TLOU is already being remade by Naughty Dog.Killzone 2
Resistance 3
Motorstorm
GoW3
MGS4
TLoU
Especially the first two.
While some of these seem extremely unlikely, at least TLOU is already being remade by Naughty Dog.
What are some of the remakes y'all want from Bluepoint? My wishlist
This is with mustaches like these that you end up with painting like this:
I remember everyone Was negative on returnal....
Mediocre... Full of problems... Please do expand on your opinion. I'm always interested in knowing why people are W R O N G.Disappointed, Returnal is a mediocre game full of problems.
Disappointed, Returnal is a mediocre game full of problems.
Not officially confirmed, but Jason leaked it, so it is pretty much a done deal. The guy is almost never wrong. I expect we will see the trailer in a few weeks, in the next big Sony event.That's just a rumor tho, or has it been officially confirmed? Either way BP, or ND using sequel's engine, the game would've been in a very good hands.
And people thought it doesn’t get any better than the Bathesda acquisition
Bethesda has not made anything worthwhile in 10 years or so (Skyrim). Everything else has been buggy messes of outdated tech with interesting lore.It didn't.
Wow ...Bethesda has not made anything worthwhile in 10 years or so (Skyrim). Everything else has been buggy messes of outdated tech with interesting lore.
The first thing MS should have done is to force them to adopt ID tech or some decent engine, restart the projects with that base instead of making another fallout 76 style disaster.
Come on, studio died because they messed up the launch with a broken part of the main selling point of the game, and took months to fix, but what turned out to be a well polished game after.closing evolution was one of the worst mistakes Sony made last gen, only second to not giving Ready at Dawn another chance
studio died because driveclub was boring. They should have never given up on motorstorm
You forgot Warhawk...Killzone 2
Resistance 3
Motorstorm
GoW3
MGS4
TLoU
Especially the first two.
A bit weird sticking Supermassive, Remedy and From Software in there but it's a okay designed visual.
I think PS3-era Sony had the best IPs and ideas. So many new IPs and genres. Despite how good the PS4 library is, it is somewhat less charming.
A bit weird sticking Supermassive, Remedy and From Software in there but it's a okay designed visual.